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The performance of departments has been largely neglected in previous studies of subject choice in secondary schools. This is a significant omission because analysis at departmental level enables a fuller assessment of the effects of competition and specialisation on pupil performance. This paper examines relationships between both absolute and value‐added measures of departmental performance and the likelihood of students being entered for examination in a subject. It examines these relationships with reference to four option subjects: French, German, Geography and History. It utilises data from an Economic and Social Research Council‐funded study which examined trends and patterns in departmental effectiveness using a sample of 664 schools which participated in the Yellis monitoring system for a minimum of five years during the period 1995–2002.

The authors investigate the size and stability of departmental effects in English secondary schooling during a period in which extensions to parental choice and annual publication of school performance tables had significantly increased competitive pressures on schools. Their database of nearly 450 English secondary schools enables them to investigate departments in terms of both their unadjusted and value-added average students' performance in national examinations. They are interested in the nature of within-school competition and concentrate upon two subjects, geography and history, which were optional subjects in each of these schools. In general, they find that relative departmental performance varies significantly over time and that few departments manage to persistently out-perform the other subject in their school. They conclude that given the instability of relative departmental performance, publication of department-level performance indicators is unlikely to generate strong incentives for departments to raise their effort and effectiveness.

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